564 



Illustrated Canadian Forestry Magazine, December, ig20 



cultural land available now or in the 

 future, one would find that there is no 

 more than a strip of farm land of sixty 

 miles wide from Vancouver to Halifax. 

 The remainder of the Dominion is 

 natural forest land or lies in a state of 

 ])ermanent barrenness. Once the forest 

 resources are killed on this immense do- 

 main, no crop can follow and it takes its 

 place as a national liability rather than an 

 asset." 



"To operate timber lands, on a ])rin- 

 ciple of sustained yield, the limits must 

 be worked as units of the greatest pos- 

 sible size. If we are to inaugurate the 

 restriction of log cutting to mature and 

 diseased trees, automatically the small 

 Hmit holder is closed out of business. 

 He cannot make a living under such a 

 system. I believe today, as I have always 

 believed, that we have far too many mills 

 to permit of continuous timber grow- 

 ing. I beheve that forest conservation 



cannot be successfully practised unless 

 tlie operations can be spread over large 

 areas, allowing scope for methods of 

 forest recuperation." 



"Do .you favor a plan of state manage- 

 ment of timber lands similar to that in 



forests in Sweden?" 



"Sweden did not come to its present 

 policy of public supervision of all tim- 

 ber lands, jniblic or private, until she was 

 cuUiiig tiniljer considerably smaller on 

 the average than what we are cutting in 

 Canada. I find difficulty in developing 

 any enthusiasm for a i)ublic forestry 

 programme in view of my experience 

 that the people of Canada are so misled 

 regarding the limitations of their forest 

 resources that any calmly-considered 

 scheme for perpetuation of the country's 

 forests would find the public either apa- 

 thetic or supremely indignant at being 

 disturbed from a happy dream." 



The Old, Old Story of the Pine Tree 



White-pine operations in the "Lake States" of America be- 

 gan with a single sawmill in 1832; eastern shipments were being 

 made three or four years later; and the culmination was reached 

 in 1892 with a cut of nearly 9 billion feet. Dreary wastes, dis- 

 mantled sawmills, deserted towns, and an insignificant pine out- 

 put of a single billion feet in 1918 are depressing reminders of 

 the day when Lake States lumber supplied the markets of the 

 country from the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean and from the 

 Canadian boundary literally to the Gulf. 



The great development of the southern industry began in 

 the seventies and increased rapidly to what was probably the 

 maximum, about 16 billion feet, in 1909. In its turn, southern 

 pine dominated the markets little if any less completely than 

 white pine; but the South is following the course of other re- 

 gions,, and the remaining supplies of virgin pine are only about 

 one-fifth of the original stand. Within a single decade southern 

 pine production promises to exceed by little, if any, the needs of 

 the South. 



